Chapter Four

Two weeks passed, and I became accustomed to the impossible. There is nothing on Earth that a person can't learn to accept. After the initial surprise, magic was one of the easier concepts to swallow, though I spent my first days at the ranch in a daze, a defense against so much strangeness, I guess. Reality has always been mysterious, even to scientists. This was just one more mystery.

Having been charged with keeping an eye on me, Timothy was always near and solicitous, making certain I didn't wander where I wasn't wanted. They needn’t have worried. My curiosity was dead on arrival once Milton delivered me back to the kitchen. I kept to a handful of rooms in the labyrinthine house, and I did not open any strange doors. I assumed they were dangerous, and hence, forbidden.

I rarely saw Milton and then only in passing. He was aloof and intimidating, and I didn't like what I couldn't decipher in his weird gold eyes. He wasn't mean or abusive, but distant, and I guessed he may have been as worried about my dad as I was. If he had any progress to report, he wasn't sharing it.

I read to pass the hours and watched movies from their outrageous collection. They had hundreds of titles, but I wasn't genuinely interested in any of them. I was going on automatic. Finally, at Timothy's suggestion, I went outside. The sun, he said, is the only known cure for nightmares. Though I hadn’t said anything to him about my dreams, I gladly took his advice and headed toward the barn, skirting a golem along the way.

Milton owned about a dozen cattle which seemed a pointless sort of herd. I supposed it was part of going incognito as a “rancher.” I can't say who he put up the show for, as we seemed miles from the nearest town in any direction, but I think it was like a disguise that is worn so long it becomes part of the wardrobe.

In addition to the cattle, there was a single horse. He was old, walking in a painful but proud way with a long mane matted into a dull rug hanging over his neck. He was covered in grass and burrs and stood at a distance from the other animals. On a whim, I dug up the curry comb out of the tack room in the barn to go about brushing him.

He didn't run from me or make any aggressive moves as I came close. He stared at me with rheumy, heavy-lidded disdain; as if he would not be looking at me at all if his head hadn’t been turned in that direction already.

"It's all right, boy," I said as I came within a step or two. "It's okay."

"I am not sure that it is," he replied, "but if you intend to get to work, I ask that you not do so much gawking beforehand."

I froze, my worldview dumped yet again. "You talk?"

"If you believed me incapable of conversation, that question would be nonsensical. As it stands, it is merely self-evident."

He sounded like the BBC Winston Churchill from history class, not a mangy old horse.

"Uh…" I parried masterfully.

He made an exasperated noise, giving in. "Yes. I speak. I am a talking horse, huzzah. Now please, I have not been brushed in eons."

I gathered what wits had not been scattered too far and went to work. Honestly, I should have expected something like this as soon as I saw him by himself. Nothing alienates like intelligence, though that didn't explain his lack of grooming. His flanks were padded with dust and the tangles so numerous they must have been reproducing exponentially. When I was battling a particularly powerful cluster, he cried out.

"Franklin Delano!"

That was pushing the limit for me. He tossed his head along with his exclamation, which threw me off balance and I fell down laughing.

"My apologies," he said. "Are you all right? I do not see what is so humorous that you should sit there giggling."

"Seriously?" I said, brushing off. "Seriously?"

“Do not collapse, dear girl," he said solemnly, "you have work yet undone."

I mustered my dignity and began combing again, as pleased as I had been since arriving at the ranch.

"Neigh," he intoned in a clearly enunciated sigh, causing me to again misplace a portion of my composure.

"Are you certain you are fine," he asked. "Not prone to any sort of seizure?"

"I’m wonderful," I said. "Wonderful."

"It is well that you say so. I will expect regular attendance now that we have been introduced."

"But we haven’t been. I don't know your name."

"I am Bolton." He bestowed it upon me like a royal favor or knighthood. I wondered if horses had heraldry. "And you?"

"I am Abby." Without thinking I had given him the name my father called me. I usually went by Abigail.

"Since that is finished," he said, "you must promise me not to meet with any fatal accidents in the near future. I do so hate learning names."

"Fatal accidents? Why would you think that?"

"Everyone dies," he said seriously.

I felt a tickle on the back of my neck. Glancing quickly around, I spied one of the golems watching me from the other side of the fence. I couldn't tell from that distance, but I knew it was White Eye without being able to see.

Bolton sensed my tension and gauged its source. “I despise them all," he said, "the wizards and their toys. I won't let them come near me."

This won my attention. "Why not?"

"That is my concern. But do not ever let them use you. Do not become their plaything, Abby. No wizards can be trusted."

So that was why he was so unkempt. He wouldn’t let the golems care for him as they did the other animals. I twisted enough to see that the white-eyed golem had gone. It was unsettling how quickly they moved. I wasn’t sure what Bolton had against my uncle and Timothy, but his aversion to their “staff" seemed reasonable enough. They gave me the chills.

It was a long and arduous task, but knot by knot his hair gave way under my ministrations. As the morning deepened into afternoon, he became practically respectable. He talked for a while about the seasons changing, about how long it been since he had any proper help, and his initial gruffness dissipated before a wealth of surplus amiability.

"It has been years since I have felt the need to be nice to anyone. Would you like a ride, Abby?" he asked as I applied the last strokes of his comb.

"Huh?" He was so well-spoken that it was a beat or two before I remembered that Bolton was a horse. "Oh," I said, "I wouldn't know how."

He snorted. "It is not as if you will be doing anything. I am the one who moves. I thought it might be relaxing for you after such a struggle with my luxurious locks." He tossed his head as if to put his extraordinarily long mane to better display, and the resemblance to a Justin Bieber hair flip was uncanny.

"Sure," I said. "That sounds nice."

We spent an hour circling the dusty pasture, and it gave me the opportunity to admire the lackluster scenery. The mountains were pretty, and the rest wasn’t a desert, exactly, but close enough. There were gnarly grasses and scraggly clumps. It all seemed to be in the process of drying out. There were no trees at all until the land began to rise out past the little pond, supplied by I don't know what. It must have been runoff from somewhere.

Riding was easy once I managed to mount. Bolton kept to a steady plod which suited me fine, being that I was without a saddle or any experience. It felt a little awkward at the beginning, being a passenger on an animal more articulate than myself, but as he didn't seem to mind, I soon became more comfortable.

We carried on in a pleasant, mostly silent camaraderie. The only detriment to our experience was an increasing awareness of the white-eyed golem, whom I too often espied turned in our direction. I did my best to ignore it. Timothy had assured me that they were harmless a dozen times or more, almost enough to make me wonder whether he was covering something.

"How long have you been here, Bolton?" I asked as we were nearing the end of our round. He definitely gave the impression of advanced age.

"I cannot tell you for certain," he explained. “I have no way of keeping a calendar given my physical limitations. Milton would know, but I do not speak when he is near."

"Why not?" He hadn't answered me before, but it couldn't hurt to venture another try.

Bolton heaved a horsely sigh. "He is the one who gave me my voice, dulcimer instrument that it is, so he had someone to converse with on our longer journeys. He was a different man then, or perhaps, I did not truly know him. I do not approve of what he has become."

Bolton spoke as if he was looking into a previous age, one he much preferred. I thought of cowboys and unpaved paths in an endless wasteland, not that this is hard to imagine in Nevada.

"How old are you?"

He made a sound like an older gentleman abiding a favored but overly curious grandchild. "Again, there are no certainties in that regard, but my life began well before those roaring demons came to blacken the roads and chase me off."

It took a second before I realized he was referring to the invention of cars.

When, as he put it, his hocks had had enough, we parted for the day. I promised I would visit with him on the next. He took a meal one of the golems had left for him, plenty of oats and hay, and I set off to the house intending to find food for myself. I was famished.

My thighs were sore from our trip around the grounds, but I felt better than I had all week. Already I felt closer to Bolton that I did to Timothy, maybe because I didn't have to think of the horse as being so far above me.

It was a short trek back to the house, and I took it in good spirits. The windows were dark and unsettling, but I knew the inside would feel welcoming. I would make a few sandwiches, and Timothy would wander in from wherever he had been hiding himself, and we would chat about nothing. It sometimes seemed like the house arranged itself according to his preference. It wasn't a bad place to live, but then my mind wandered to why I was here.

Without my dad, it couldn't feel right. It had always been the two of us. I had never made many friends, which was my own fault. I hadn't been comfortable with others my age. I've gotten along with some well enough, but somehow I wasn't able to let them close. I had never had a “best friend. “Now and again I felt as if I was waiting for someone, but aside from my books and my dad, that feeling was all I had.

Footsteps shadowed my own on the gravelly earth. Who was that? I sensed him even before I turned around. The white-eyed golem was behind me, ten paces away, face like a mask of clay. His eyes were terribly intent.

"What do you want?" My voice trembled only slightly. "I'm going in."

He didn't answer, of course. His stare had not been as menacing with Bolton nearby. Now we were alone, and I was afraid.

"Please go away."

I might as well have said nothing. Before I had a chance to run or to scream, one arm was locked around me, cold and immovable as steel. I tried to lash out, to bite the hand over my mouth, but it was like biting a brick. He was so strong I could barely breathe, let alone break free. His head dipped down, and I felt a sharp sting where my shoulder met my neck and the warmth of blood.

I saw the mirror in my father's house, the shadow growing like in my dream. Was I hallucinating? Dying? The darkness grew until it was pushing against the mirror, cracking the barrier, a wheel of fire blooming. There was no more breath in me; but an inferno raged in my ears. "This isn't right," I thought. "There was supposed to be a unicorn."

Then the shadow took me.

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